Provided by Noel San AntonioChildren are taught in a classroom at St. Anthony Development and Learning Center of Bulacan, a school in the Philippines founded by San Antonio, a UNF student.

In an impoverished Filipino farming town, preschool and kindergarten students learn in the two-room building of St. Anthony School.
Neighbors from the tiny village volunteered to build the school by hand, using only $5,000 worth of materials. The 60 kids in three classes learn from used textbooks and computers shipped from Florida.
The parents even help clean the school.
It hardly sounds perfect. But it’s much better than what 34-year-old Noel San Antonio grew up with in the Philippines. The public school in his hometown packs 50 to 60 students into each of its elementary school classrooms.
That’s why the University of North Florida electrical engineering student founded a nonprofit foundation to support the St. Anthony Development and Learning Center. He keeps it going by scrounging up $100 here and $200 there from churches and friends. In the future, he’d like to add another building and expand classes to 12th grade.
“I really think there’s so much we can do to make sure the needy get the right education,” he said. “It really will lift the community.”
Jerry Merckel, UNF professor of electrical engineering, said he believes San Antonio “has done far more than most will do in a lifetime in terms of giving back.”
After high school, San Antonio spent nine years traveling the globe as a Catholic missionary, helping the less fortunate. Now, he’s encouraging others.
There’s just something about him, Merckel said, that makes people want to help his cause.
“Some leaders tend to be more vocal and take the bull by the horns,” he said, “but he’s a quiet leader who really brings people together with his passion.
“It’s almost like he’s on a mission.”
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Most of the people in town of Cut-cut in the Bulacan province are mango, rice and cabbage farmers who don’t make much money. San Antonio’s mother was a dressmaker who would work long hours. He shined shoes and sold newspapers to earn money.
As a missionary, San Antonio traveled to Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, giving speeches to young people about how to live morally. He talked to them about their problems with their parents or friends and guide them through tough situations.
While doing his work around the world, he looked online and found — and earned — a National Science Foundation scholarship to attend Daytona Beach Community College in 2004. He moved to Palm Coast, then transferred to UNF to earn his bachelor’s degree.
It was always his dream, though, to found a school to help others.
Through his Palm Coast church, San Antonio met Josefina Garcia, a fellow Filipino who shared his passion for helping back home. He told her about his dream and, in 2005, Garcia donated a small amount of land in Cut-cut and $5,000 of her own money.
A few months later, the school opened. He named it after St. Anthony, not just his namesake but also the patron saint of poor people.
He had a building, but not much else, so San Antonio contacted anyone he could think of to try to find supplies.
Flagler County schools donated used textbooks and refurbished computers to send over. San Antonio’s relatives back home organized the school and picked the neediest students to attend. His mother sewed the children’s uniforms.
“All I said is 'This is what I want to do. Do you want to help?’ ” he said, “and people jumped on board.”
At the school, students are taught basic math, science and reading along with a Catholic education. The school even offers classes for parents to help them find better work.
San Antonio raises $300 a month to pay for the school’s two teachers, which is actually a good paycheck for the area.
The impact of those few thousand dollars — what some people spend on a TV — has been astonishing. San Antonio said the kids he’s met are excited to be learning, and those who were quiet and shy are now outspoken and enthusiastic.
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San Antonio has visited the school every summer and winter break since it opened, but his main function is to raise funds for the Joy and Care Giving Foundation, his 501c3 nonprofit. If he raises enough money, San Antonio would like to add another building, which would cost $8,000.
Ten years from now, he hopes the school will be teaching students up to 12th grade, which he thinks would cost $60,000 to $80,000 to build and $20,000 a year in operating costs.
He’ll continue to send money to the school after he graduates next year, when he plans to take a job in electrical engineering. Eventually, he’d like to go to the Philippines to teach, which is why he’s taking some education courses at UNF.
Through education, he said he thinks one of his students could become the next Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul II.
One person, he said, can make a difference.
“When I grow old, I want to be able to say I made an impact on one child,” he said. “Maybe that one child will make an impact on the world.”